It has been a pleasure to readthe material
describing your Dualmode and PRT systems. I know how much dreaming, how many sleepless
nights, how many hours of hard work have gone into the creation of your individual
proposals. In my view you people are the first unsung heros of the 21st century
and I hope you will all be justly recognized and rewarded. May all of you remain at the
forefront of this transportation revolution and become its principal builders,
manufacturers, and operators. I have no wish to critique any of your work. Rather I will
simply pass along a few thoughts and let you draw your own conclusions. You will note that
my concerns deal more with transportation demand, transportation productivity and our
ability to sell the new technology. I hope my contribution will help you to pinpoint what
comes next.

I feel that now is time to reach agreement on the design of the guideway. The nation
can begin building thousands of miles of guideway before the tests on the new vehicles and
other concepts are completed. My hope is that all of you agree that there can be only one
guideway design. Just as roads are the same for all, so will the guideways be the same for
all. Traffic on the guideway will be like traffic on our roads. Thousands of businesses
provide transportation service on our roads. The same process should occur on our
guideways. Once the guideway configuration is selected, the question for each of you is
"how can I adapt my ideas and my patents to this design?" The debate to date has
focused on the defense of your own designs. I think that now, it is time to step back and
broaden your view. It would be a feather in your collective caps if the agreed upon
guideway design were to be presented at the Dualmode Professional Engineers Conference in
October.

I wish I could say that I am totally unbiased. I cannot. I am biased toward the use of magnetic levitation.
Logic, or maybe instinct, tells me that maglev is an enormous gift to mankind that must
not be ignored. It represents the elimination of friction, of wear and tear, of costly
maintenance, a major component of the cost equation. In economic terms it may represent
one of the largest boosts in productivity ever contributed to our society by any
individual invention.

When we go to the President to offer our Dualmode, one of our arguments is that we have
not only doubled the life expectancy of our automobiles, our existing highways, and also
the new guideways, but that we have cut our automotive maintenance bill by half.
Automobiles will not wear out so quickly. They are perfectly still on the guideway, while
they travel thousands of miles. Their engines and their tires will last longer. There will
be few if any eighteen-wheelers to pound our highways. There are no wheels to pound the
guideway. There is no frictional wear on the guideways.

All of this represents a productivity increase. We lose the benefit of this argument
however, if the wheels of the auto are replaced by the wheels of the guideway. It is my
hope that all of you can easily convert your proprietary wheeled systems to maglev without
seriously compromising all other features of your designs.

Our single most important national objective is to quickly convince our nation to buy
electric cars. As I see it, no one incentive will provide greater motivation to buy
electric cars than the ability to enter a high speed guideway quickly without stopping.
This is why I am absolutely convinced that the pallet must be an integral part of the
electric automobile. Admittedly this will increase the cost of the auto, but perhaps under
mass production its costs should be much less than ICE cars of today. It is also possible
that the pallet can be a separate module that attaches to autos, and that its life time
will outlast that of the auto.

I suggest that as soon as the cars enter the guideway approach lane, they are checked
while in motion for credit and performance and if found wanting, they are diverted to an
exit. If accepted, their engine is cut off automatically and they enter the final approach
on the guideway. All that is needed is the design of an interface between electric cars
and the guideway that accomplishes these functions.

I further suggest, that entrances for other vehicles, including those needing external
pallets, be provided only at other and less frequent locations. I assume these latter
stations will have to be manned and their numbers should be kept to a minimum. I can think
of no better way to convert our nation to electricity than to give them the option of
choosing between these two types of entrances unto the guideway. The electric car market
will boom.

The idea of a 200 mile an hour Intercity Dualmode Guideway System is also highly
attractive. However, the choice of system velocity will require careful study. More people
will be attracted to the guideway as more speed is offered. But as speed rises so does the
price. As price rises fewer people are attracted. At some point a particular combination
of speed and price produces the maximum revenues.

This is the velocity we should use if we operate the system strictly for the
operators profit.

However this may be one of those cases when the function of the market mechanism does
not capture all the benefits of the country as a whole. Velocity not only benefits the
user but also benefit other elements of our society that are not using the guideway and
are not subject to its pricing structure. In essence they are getting a free benefit. I am
guessing that the velocity that produces the maximum revenues, will be lower than the
velocity that produces the maximum long term productivity for the nation. If I am correct,
then we should adopt the faster system. However, the user should not pay the added
electricity costs of the additional velocity. The added velocity was introduced to benefit
the nation and should be paid by the nation by whatever fiscal tools are appropriate. Not
only does the nation achieve its additional gains, but the added component of velocity
shifts the demand function upward and increases usage thus furthering our goal of
converting to a new energy source. That alone has side effects that benefit the nation,
users and nonuser. Studies are required to give substance to my guess.

However I realize that the paying of operating costs by nonusers will be anathema to
many. In that case we can use the solution suggested by Guadagno. We will build a slower
system and a faster system. Let us build a 200 mile an hour 42,000 mile system generally
along the Interstate Highway system Corridor. Then let us build 8,000 miles of a 300 mile
an hour system that connects the distant parts of the country. The operating speed on the
42,000 mile system would be set at 120 miles per hour or whatever speed generated the
maximum revenues. The operating velocity on the 8,000 mile system would be set at 240
miles per hour or whatever velocity generated the maximum revenues. Users could opt to
travel the entire trip on one of the systems or a combination of both. Together the two
systems should be able to capture most of the potential benefit for the country that speed
can achieve.

The speed question has another interesting dimension called capacity. Our guideway is
unique in that increases in velocity increase its capacity. I assume that the system
velocity can be changed at will. (Am I right about this?) Thus as the guideways become
congested, the congestion can be relieved by increasing the velocity. The importance of
this fact is that it tells us that we should design for a higher velocity than the finally
adopted system velocity. If a 200 mile an hour system is technically possible, then this
is the system to build, even though we intend to operate at 120 miles per hour.

I have read the pro and con arguments for supported versus suspended vehicles and
pallets and I am not sure that I have anything constructive to offer. At the moment I
still favor the supported vehicle. My principal reason is that in case of a shutdown,
wheels will be needed to support both the cars and the pallets. I have already argued that
maglev is superior because wheels are not needed while in transit. I have to concede that
wheels are needed if the guideway shuts down. My concern is that I cannot see putting
wheels on a pallet mounted on top of the electric cars. My fears may be unfounded. Perhaps
small diameter rollers could be placed next to the magnets. It seems to me that we should
take advantage of the fact that the electric car already has wheels which will support the
car and can also be used to drive off the guideway under its own power. Perhaps cars with
their own pallets should ride in top of the guideway and pallets carrying cars and
containers should be suspended on the guideway. Perhaps the guideway should be protected
with a roof and partially open transparent sides. Then all traffic would be under partial
cover.

I have one final thought. I suggest to you that the best way to become involved in the
new Dualmode-PRT industry is to be involved at its beginning. This is your project. Fight
for it. I believe that all of you, together should brief the next President of the United
States. I have a few ideas as to what the briefing should say and I will pass them on to
you, hopefully through the good graces of Jerry Schneider. But, as soon as possible you
should invite urban and regional planners, transportation specialists, economists,
environmental engineers, petroleum engineers and electric power engineers to this debate.
Your briefings to the President and the Congress will need their input.

I have already prepared a draft of a letter to the President which I will forward to
Jerry in the next few days. I will ask him to pass it along to all of you for review,
revision, editing and approval. All of us should sign the letter. We have earned the
right. That will be pretty much the end of my contribution to this effort. (Although later
on, I may send you some numbers that might be useful in preparing the briefing.)